Blog, SoCS

SoCS – Are You Bored?

Maggie

We are back and Linda Hill gives us two words for SoCS this week – homophones if you will. There are even bonus points possible!  Head over to Linda’s blog to get all the details on how to participate. Make sure to read some of the other blogger’s posts while you are there.

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “board/bored.” Use one, or use them both for bonus points. Enjoy!

I am trying to remember when kids started saying “I’m bored” and could seemingly find nothing to do. I certainly never said it and I honestly do not remember my children saying it. I think maybe it is not that kids are bored, but perhaps more they are not challenged in the way previous generations were. We had the whole outside world at our disposal with very few restrictions. Maybe the world of a child has shrunken into a smaller box.

Even now I am seldom bored. I busy myself with something at all times – or at least I try to. One of my favorite pasttimes is research. Now, I am not a fan of being required to research something, but I love it when my own curiosity takes hold. I can spend endless hours searching for small morsels of information. I know that is part of the allure of genealogy for me.

When we were younger, my, parents bought a set of World Book encyclopedias. I loved those white covers that held what seemed to be all the information in the world. Our edition had pages of color illustrations. I remember in the C volume, there were several pages of costumes from historic eras throughout the world. I think those photos are what made me fall in love with Egyptian culture – I loved the clothing they wore! I loved learning about Flappers and their dresses with long strands of pearls and feather boas.

The difference in researching for pleasure, is the drive and desire to learn something. In business I often found it was hard to get people on board with the idea of researching. I will admit the material can be dry at times. Don’t get me wrong, I was an excellent researcher in business because solving a problem that required research was like finding the solution to a puzzle.

I love games on my iPad that require thinking – escape rooms are a perfect example. I remember years ago when The Scarlet Room came out. The graphics were wonderful for the time and the puzzles challenging. Years later my grandson and I would spend time solving those games together. We never got bored!

Right now I am researching mail order brides for a short story I am writing. It is so interesting. I know many of our blogging friends who are also published authors spend a great deal of time doing research. Readers will definitely tell you if your research was not thorough enough.

With so much information at our fingertips, how can anyone get bored?

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20 thoughts on “SoCS – Are You Bored?”

  1. When I was a child, I was often bored on Sunday afternoons in the winter months. My mum would say, “Read a book”. Then one day I did just that, and I was never bored again.
    Best wishes, Pete.

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  3. The encyclopedias were a huge part of my life in Jr High and High school. I have fond memories of walking to the library on Saturdays with my friend to do homework. One teacher had us find a list of facts just so we’d learn how to research. At first it felt like drudgery, but then it became a treasure hunt.

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  5. Good job on the prompt, Maggie. I do enjoy research. I was surprised by how much research goes into fiction, even a short story, but you’re right, readers will let you know if you take any shortcuts through history.

    I love the notion of the kids’ world being shoved into a smaller box. In many ways, we had it so much easier, and we were able to experience so much more.

    I hope you have a great weekend.

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    1. I remember taking a Masterclass with Margaret Atwood and she talked about a novel she researched and wrote. unfortunately, she had traffic moving in the wrong direction on a traffic circle and she heard from readers about it.

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      1. That’s funny. I remember walking to a train station in London and getting lost because my directions said to take the second exit from a traffic circle and I walked in the wrong direction.

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  7. I was often bored as a child. Yes, I read a lot, but not 24/7. I had no siblings and we moved so often it was hard to make new friends. School wasn’t that challenging for me either. Now, of course, I’m never bored because of the internet…

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